Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Politics
Eugene Volokh | 8.22.2025 3:00 AM
Start your day with Reason. Get a daily brief of the most important stories and trends every weekday morning when you subscribe to Reason Roundup.
NEXT: Who Is Lawfully Exercising the Powers of the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey?
Hide Comments (140)
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Speaking of disenfranchisement. California is roughly 40% conservative/Republican leaning based on the Presidential election. Yet the Dems control more than 80% of the House seats and 100% of the Senate seats. And about 75% of the state legislature. So thats roughly 8 million people disenfranchised. Or more depending on how you juggle the numbers. Why are we whining so much about DC again when nobody seems to care about this? How many people live there?
Now do Texas.
The Irish Potato Famine (1845–1852) remains one of the most catastrophic episodes of mass death in modern European history, claiming over a million lives and displacing another million through emigration. While natural blight devastated the potato crop, the true scale of suffering was not inevitable; it was shaped by political, economic, and legal choices. Among those responsible were members of the legal profession—lawmakers, barristers, and administrators—who upheld frameworks that prioritized property rights and laissez-faire ideology over human survival. Their role in resisting or delaying the repeal of the Corn Laws illustrates how legal conservatism contributed to famine mortality.
Legal Structures and Property Rights
Irish land tenure in the nineteenth century was governed by laws that entrenched the rights of landlords—often absentee and Anglo-Protestant—at the expense of tenant farmers, most of whom were Catholic. Legal professionals drafted, defended, and enforced eviction laws that allowed landlords to expel families who could not pay rent, even as crops failed. Courts consistently upheld landlord rights, treating tenants as disposable. The profession’s allegiance to property law, rather than humanitarian necessity, meant that starving families were legally cast into the roads while food continued to be exported from Ireland. In this sense, the legal system became an instrument of famine, not relief.
The Corn Laws and Legal Conservatism
The Corn Laws—protective tariffs on imported grain—kept food prices artificially high to benefit British landowners. Though the famine made repeal morally urgent, many lawyers, judges, and Members of Parliament with legal training resisted change. They argued in legalistic terms that repeal would violate long-standing principles of English property and contract law, destabilize the landed order, and exceed Parliament’s proper authority. This resistance prolonged the application of tariffs and slowed the inflow of affordable food into Ireland. It was not until 1846, under Prime Minister Robert Peel, that the Corn Laws were repealed. Even then, repeal came too late to save hundreds of thousands already weakened by hunger. The delay was not accidental but the product of parliamentary debate dominated by lawyers trained to privilege precedent, hierarchy, and the rights of the landowning class. Their insistence on gradualism, legality, and economic orthodoxy over emergency relief translated directly into mass death.
Free Trade, Export Quotas, and Famine
Even after the repeal of the Corn Laws, structural legal barriers rooted in free trade ideology continued to deepen famine suffering. Free trade agreements and export regulations maintained quotas that ensured the steady flow of Irish agricultural exports to Britain, despite abundant harvests of non-potato crops. Grain, livestock, and butter left Irish ports under legal contracts and trade commitments, while the local population starved. Lawyers and policymakers defended these export quotas as necessary to honor property rights and uphold Britain’s trade reputation, demonstrating how legal instruments of commerce were elevated above humanitarian responsibility.
Modern Parallels
The dynamic of law serving commerce while ignoring famine is not confined to the nineteenth century. In modern conflicts, international trade law and contractual export obligations continue to limit famine relief. For example, during the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s, export contracts for cash crops were honored even as millions starved, with lawyers defending the sanctity of trade agreements. In Yemen’s ongoing humanitarian crisis, international shipping restrictions and blockades—structured through legal frameworks of war and trade—have slowed food entry despite abundant supplies in global markets. Similarly, in East Africa today, nations suffering drought are often still required to meet export quotas under trade agreements, prioritizing foreign exchange earnings over feeding their populations. In each case, legal doctrines of property, contract, and sovereignty override the moral imperative to save lives, repeating the same deadly pattern seen in Ireland.
Conclusion
The Irish Potato Famine was not simply a natural disaster; it was a legally mediated catastrophe. Lawyers, by defending the Corn Laws, upholding landlord eviction rights, maintaining export quotas under free trade agreements, and prioritizing economic orthodoxy over humanitarian duty, contributed to the deaths of over a million people. Modern parallels in Ethiopia, Yemen, and other famine-stricken regions show that this legal pattern persists: the profession often elevates contracts and commerce above human life. The famine remains a sobering reminder that the law, when divorced from moral responsibility, can become an accomplice to mass death—both in the nineteenth century and in our own time.
John Belushi said it more succinctly and funnier in 1977
Okay...Texas is about 42% Dem leaning with 32% of the House Delegation and 35% and 41% of the state legislature. So nowhere near as bad as California but strangely enough much more in the news.
Is it?
It is
Do both BY COUNTY -- or better by CITY...
AmosArch — Why are presidential election results an appropriate criterion to decide gerrymandering questions?
If partisan gerrymandering is okay, why wouldn't it also become status quo, maximally practiced in every state all the time, with census results re-cast every 2 years or so?
If that is not okay, what process of constraint ought to be applied alike everywhere?
My point is that leftists are masters of projection. Most everything they accuse their opponents of they do worse. (another example would be racism/discrimination, they are the party fighting against it supposedly, yet at the same time the one that most openly and proudly brags about discriminating by race). With the help of their surrogates in the media though they've managed, at least for dumb people, to invert reality. IE Evil republicans are the ones stomping around disenfranchising voters, Gruesome Newsom is going to 'counter' evil republicans by further gerrymandering a map which already disenfranchises half of Republicans far more than Texas. What a hero according to the breathless MSM. Reichwingers what to discriminate by race. How dastardly of them. BTW heres thousands in money and jobs if you are a certain race.
Did you miss the happenings in Texas?
With no prompting from Democrats in California or anywhere else, Trump asked Texas to unusually re-draw its districts in a non-census year simply to help save Republican House seats before the 2026 midterms. Texas has obliged.
This did not happen because "leftists are masters of projection"; it happened because MAGAts are masters of corruption.
I’m not sure “disenfranchisement” is the right word here. Nobody’s being denied a ballot — it’s that voters haven’t self-sorted, so conservatives in blue districts (or liberals in red ones) get outvoted. That’s representation diluted by geography, not disenfranchisement in the D.C. sense where people literally don’t have voting members of Congress because they don’t live in a state.
If everyone in the states did self-sort, the map would likely track closer to the 60/40 vote split, but it would also mean sending more ideologically firm reps from both sides, since there’d be fewer mixed districts forcing moderation. On the other hand, if we had perfect political integration instead, Republicans would probably vanish from California’s delegation entirely — every district would be 60/40 blue — but the result might be more moderate Democrats, since each district would still have to court a large conservative minority.
You could in theory add an amendment analogous to the 23rd to give D.C. residents representation in the legislative branch — but I’m not sure that would ever fly politically.
If only politicians could just order people where to live, they’d never have to worry about these maps again. /sarc
California ended up with its current legislative set by having Republicans relatively spread out, but we don't see that producing your claimed moderate Democrats, because they don't need to court that minority. Instead we see "jungle primaries" that send two Democrats to the general election, and the majority of voters pick the more extreme one because the moderate gets painted as a stalking horse for Nazis (or other fascists, racists, etc.).
Is the term "jungle primaries" racist? Asking for a friend.
Love when the talking heads on PMS-NBC will call Brennan or Clapper a "Spook",(even heard "Chief Spook" once) totally unaware of it's other meanings.
Frank
Look at a county map and you'll fine "spread out" means covering 70% of California that isn't the coastline between SF and LA/SD.
AmosArch: Gerrymandering is here to stay. It won't go away.
Just let it happen. I don't think it is half as bad as people posit. There are too many elections for gerrymanders to remain in place in perpetuity.
1. Gerrymandering is bad; but it's a huge free rider problem and won't be solved on a state-by-state basis. 2. Not getting who you want elected isn't disenfranchisement. 3. Texas, at the behest of Trump, is first mover here; everything else is a defensive reaction. 4. You don't mention Texas initially. You claim that's to point out all the projection going on from the other side...looks to me more like you don't have legit standards, just partisan resentment.
Let's put this in context, shall we?
Republicans currently hold 17% of California's House seats, if the proposed additional gerrymandering works as expected, that will be cut to 8%. This in a state that's maybe 38-40% Republican.
So Republicans presently get 45% of proportional representation, and Democrats aim to reduce that to 21% of proportional representation.
Texas is about 42% Democratic. Democrats currently hold 34% of the House seats. If the Texas gerrymander works as intended, they'll end up with 21% of those seats.
So Democrats presently get 81% of proportional representation in Texas, and Republicans aim to reduce that to 50% of proportional representation.
California is already more gerrymandered against Republicans than Texas would be against Democrats AFTER this proposed gerrymander!
Now, this is a crude way to analyze things, which doesn't take into account political geography, but the last sophisticated analysis of gerrymandering I looked at, that did take political geography into account, had California already being one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. And Texas not gerrymandered at all. (Figure 3, page 335.)
So, Texas proposes to move from not gerrymandered to gerrymandered, and that's bad.
In response, California is proposing to move from heavily gerrymandered to insanely gerrymandered. That's worse.
The bottom line is that neither party should be gerrymandered, but the truth is, the Republicans are just playing catch up here compared to California.
This is not really a fight Democrats can win, by the way, if it goes national: Democrats have already exploited most of their gerrymandering potential, they don't have a lot of gains available to them on this front. By contrast, Republicans have hardly started. If both parties gerrymandered balls to the wall, the map for Democrats would be really, really bad.
Can we achieve some sort of mutual disarmament on this front? I don't have a lot of hope, but that's what we should aim for. And getting rid of court ordered racial gerrymandering would be a good start.
This isn't context; it's trying to draw an imaginary line such that you can be OK with what Texas is doing but condemn California.
For all your assertions and numbers, you can't really do that and be principled.
Again, Texas is the first mover here. That's a difference in kind.
Everything else is you trying to remain partisan but not look like it. And declare preemptive victory in this partisan war you've set up.
It is, in fact, context, as the fact you want to ignore all the numbers and go with your "vibes" demonstrates.
Texas is only the first mover here if you ignore all previous moves. California was ALREADY more gerrymandered than Texas is proposing to become. They were already one of the most gerrymandered states in the country.
I'd rather Texas canceled their gerrymandering scheme, and California abandoned gerrymandering in favor of a fair map, giving Republicans in California about the level of representation Democrats currently enjoy in Texas.
But if it takes an all out gerrymandering war to convince Democrats to give up on their own gerrymandering, I guess that's what it's going to take.
Texas is doing a mid-term gerrymander. You can't context your way out of that.
How many exact units of gerrymander each state has is irrelevant to whether you think this is cool or not.
I'd rather Texas canceled their gerrymandering scheme Coulda fooled me. Just like how you 'don't like Trump' the proof is where you spend your energy.
convince Democrats This is you pretending Republicans don't have agency, except to influence those dastardly Dems. You do it a lot.
Republicans are in power. All over the place. Texas broke norms to do this. You have a ridiculously open double standard here, that is evident to everyone but yourself.
Yes, Texas is doing a mid-term gerrymander, I have already acknowledged that. And California is ALREADY gerrymandered, can YOU acknowledge that? By every metric of gerrymandering I know of, California is already gerrymandered worse than Texas proposes to become!
What's the important thing here, the offensive thing? That it's mid term, or that its a gerrymander? If a state were gerrymandered already, and in mid term adopted a fair map, would you be outraged? No, I don't think so. The real offense here is the gerrymandering, not the mid-term aspect.
So the bottom line remains as I've identified it: Texas is proposing to go from a reasonably fair map to gerrymandered, and that's bad.
California is ALREADY gerrymandered worse than Texas proposes to become, and that's bad.
California is proposing to become gerrymandered to a degree that is essentially unprecedented, and that's worse.
California is the wife beater who responds to being slapped by threatening murder. And you want to focus exclusively on the mid term aspect, to avoid acknowledging the relative extents of the gerrymandering.
S_O calls that a reply, but he is just a school boy yelling, "He hit me first."
No he is yelling " he hit me back."
I have refereed kids on the playing field who run the same scam. It is just a lot of BS by the folks who complain about the inherent "lack of democracy" in the governing structure of America.
California responded by saying it will eliminate 5 GOP reps -- Texas should respond by reducing the TX Dems to 8% as well.
Fair is fair.
We've already been over this two weeks ago. California banned gerrymandering 18 years ago.
Did you hear that guys? CA CAN'T be gerrymandered because they banned it! Those screwy looking maps aren't from gerrymandering at all! They're from jigjackermanding which is entirely legal!
And Gavin Buddyfucker wants to bring it into full glory
Except...
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-democrats-fooled-californias-redistricting-commission
My least favorite part of CA's little scam was how the state government picks the people eligible for being on the commission after having them write an essay on "insight into their professional experience, awareness of California’s diversity, and their reasons for wanting to serve on the Commission."
Diversity statements are one of the ways that the left enforces it's orthodoxy in academia through gatekeeping. It was present in the CA's commission's vetting process for the applicant pool.
This is how you get "Republican" commissioners like Jane Anderson from Berkeley, California, who was a devout Planned Parenthood supporter, donated to NARAL and supported Democratic causes through ActBlue.
California traded legislative gerrymandering for commission gerrymandering. That's all they did.
I'm curious, now that ICE will take recruits no matter how old and/or fat they are, have any of the Trumpists on this blog signed up yet?
I think they were more targeting you.
Once you relax the physical fitness standards for women, you then prove that relaxed standards are acceptable and hence why not accept men who also can only meet the relaxed standards?
All you are asking is that he be able to the job as well as the "qualified" woman can.
Obstacle course we had to do in Flight Surgeon School had an 8 foot cement wall you had to go over. That is, the Male Students had to go over, the Split-tails got to run around it, and every single Male Student still finished before every Chick. I couldn't do it when I first got there, (be honest, how many of you could climb over an 8 foot cement wall? you had to jump, grip the top with your fingers, pull yourself up, swing yourself over, and jump to the ground. Oh yeah, the "ground" was sand, so you didn't really have a great surface to jump from and the top of the wall got slick with the sweat from everyones grubby Dickbeaters (Marine Corpse Slang for "Hands") One day when I was out running the course a Giggle of High Screw-el girls showed up, probably a Softball team, They all climbed over that wall like they were storming the Bastille, How many here do pullups? they're highly perishable, used to do them till I had the Rotator Cuff, 20 was the max for the Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test (no Kipping!!!) which I could do, OK, in 1994, now I might be able to do 1.
Coming soon to a Sullum article near you: NY Supreme Court upholds verdict in Trump's civil fraud case.
Sullum will need to get past this first.
https://www.newsmax.com/us/civil-fraud-letitia-james-case/2025/08/21/id/1223412/
The NY Supreme Court is where that decision came from in the first place...
NY, where words seem to have different meanings then most other places. supreme /soo͝-prēm′/ adjective
Greatest in power, authority, or rank; paramount or dominant. Greatest in importance, degree, significance, character, or achievement. Ultimate; final. "the supreme sacrifice."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik Not the case with the NY Supreme Court.
And people -- OK, one person -- wonders why I refer to a NY SJC even though I know that is not the actual title of it.
Gorsuch issued a concurring opinion ripping government officials for willfully ignoring Supreme Court opinions:
"JUSTICE GORSUCH, with whom JUSTICE KAVANAUGH joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them. In Department of Ed. v. California, 604 U. S. ___ (2025) (per curiam), this Court granted a stay because it found the government likely to prevail in showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay grant obligations. California explained that “suits based on ‘any express or implied contract with the United States’” do not belong in district court under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act.... Rather than follow that direction, the district court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical grants to proceed to final judgment under the APA. As support for its course, the district court invoked the “persuasive authority” of “the dissent[s] in California” and an earlier court of appeals decision California repudiated.... That was error. “[U]nless we wish anarchy to prevail within the federal judicial system, a precedent of this Court must be followed by the lower federal courts no matter how misguided the judges of those courts may think it to be""
I concur.
Decision here, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a103_kh7p.pdf
It was a 4-1-4 with Roberts, Kagan, Jackson, and Sotomayor concurring in part, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh concurring in part, and Barrett splitting the baby in two, but giving the plaintiffs only a pinkie and the Administration the rest.
Basically the District court can go ahead rule on the EO and the regulation under the APA which the government wanted stayed but was denied, but the issue of the paying the money goes to the Federal claims court rather than the district court so the injunction ordering the government to pay the money is stayed.
“[U]nless we wish anarchy to prevail within the federal judicial system, a precedent of this Court must be followed by the lower federal courts no matter how misguided the judges of those courts may think it to be"
Does that include Humphrey's Executor?
Too bad Humphrey wasn't executed, along with LBJ.
Humphrey's Executor is still good law and Morrison too, but so is Myers and Selia Law, and it seems the facts in Humphrey's were buried with him, Morrison is a question mark, but Myers and Selia are in the peak of health.
And yet we get stuff like this, which makes a mockery of the idea that Humphrey's Executor is being followed. Basically the 5th Circuit is simply guessing that today's Supreme Court won't force it to follow that precedent.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/08/19/fifth-circuit-upholds-injunction-against-nlrb-proceedings-distinguishing-humphreys-executor/
If they got this wrong, then I hear the courts are open 24 hours a day:
"But both the Supreme Court and this circuit have declined to extend Humphrey's Executor to agencies that are not a "mirror image" of the FTC. The NLRB's structure and powers take it outside that narrow exception."
But the 5th just said the NLRB couldn't hear the case, so there is plenty of time to appeal with no danger of irreparable harm, so NLRB can file a cert petition but no need to address in on the shadow docket.
Yes, basically the Supreme Court expects the lower courts to follow its precedents, except the precedents it doesn't like.
Same with Kaz, it seems.
No, the Supreme Court has said it expects lower courts to follow its opinions until they have been overturned, including Humphreys.
But unless it is the FTC, Humphreys doesn't apply. Myers does, which is older and also never been overturned.
unless it is the FTC, Humphreys doesn't apply
Where did the Supreme Court say that?
Seila Law:
In Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), we held that Congress could create expert agencies led by a group of principal officers removable by the President only for good cause. And in United States v. Perkins, 116 U.S. 483 (1886), and Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988), we held that Congress could provide tenure protections to certain inferior officers with narrowly defined duties. We are now asked to extend these precedents to a new configuration...We decline to take that step."
That is Supremecourtese for "those decisions were good for one ride only".
Gorsuch should have thought that through before corroding Supreme Court authority by over-reliance on shadow docket orders without supporting opinions.
What seems destined to happen now is a lower-court revolt to compel SCOTUS to provide explicit grounds by whiich lower courts get guidance on how to decide cases. It would be fine with me if that process included ignoring SCOTUS orders handed down without full opinions on the merits of every case which the Court insists must stand as precedent. It makes no sense to permit a meritless case to establish precedent. A justice who purports to understand the law ought to be capable to demonstrate an understanding of the activity the law purports to govern.
Well the case they cite did have a per curiam opinion which did explain their reasoning, which was the same as this case: you can't use the APA to order a payment of monetary claims. That case was 5-4. And basically the same line up, Roberts and the Libs v Barrett and the Right.
Stephen, In the case of such a revolt, the President ensure that the laws are faithfully executed by ignoring the tantrum of the lower court judges. "It makes no sense to permit a meritless case to establish precedent. " The US does not have the "reasonableness standard" of the usurper Israeli Supreme Court.
That's going well. Or, to look at it from a glass half full perspective, investigative journalism is still possible in Israel:
Data from an internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza were civilians, an investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal. (...) The database includes a list of 47,653 names of Palestinians in Gaza whom Aman considers to be active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ; according to the sources, the list is based on the groups’ own internal documents acquired by the army (which +972, Local Call, and the Guardian were unable to verify). The database designates 34,973 of the names as operatives of Hamas and 12,702 as operatives of Islamic Jihad (a small number are listed as active with both groups, but these are counted only once in the overall total). According to the data, which was obtained in May of this year, the Israeli army believed it had killed around 8,900 operatives since October 7 — the deaths of 7,330 of whom were considered certain and 1,570 recorded as “probably dead.” The vast majority of them were junior, with the army suspecting it had killed 100-300 senior Hamas operatives out of a total of 750 named in the database. (...) The overall death tolls published daily by the Gaza Health Ministry (which Local Call revealed last year are considered reliable even by the Israeli military) do not distinguish between civilians and militants. But taking the militant casualty figures obtained from the internal Israeli army database in May and lining them up against the Health Ministry’s total death toll, it is possible to calculate an approximate civilian casualty ratio for the war up until three months ago, when the death toll stood at 53,000. Assuming that all of the certain and probable militant deaths were counted in the death toll, that would mean over 83 percent of Gaza’s dead were civilians. If the probable deaths are discounted and only the certain deaths included, the proportion of civilian deaths rises to more than 86 percent.
Data from an internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza were civilians, an investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal. (...) The database includes a list of 47,653 names of Palestinians in Gaza whom Aman considers to be active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ; according to the sources, the list is based on the groups’ own internal documents acquired by the army (which +972, Local Call, and the Guardian were unable to verify). The database designates 34,973 of the names as operatives of Hamas and 12,702 as operatives of Islamic Jihad (a small number are listed as active with both groups, but these are counted only once in the overall total).
According to the data, which was obtained in May of this year, the Israeli army believed it had killed around 8,900 operatives since October 7 — the deaths of 7,330 of whom were considered certain and 1,570 recorded as “probably dead.” The vast majority of them were junior, with the army suspecting it had killed 100-300 senior Hamas operatives out of a total of 750 named in the database. (...) The overall death tolls published daily by the Gaza Health Ministry (which Local Call revealed last year are considered reliable even by the Israeli military) do not distinguish between civilians and militants. But taking the militant casualty figures obtained from the internal Israeli army database in May and lining them up against the Health Ministry’s total death toll, it is possible to calculate an approximate civilian casualty ratio for the war up until three months ago, when the death toll stood at 53,000.
Assuming that all of the certain and probable militant deaths were counted in the death toll, that would mean over 83 percent of Gaza’s dead were civilians. If the probable deaths are discounted and only the certain deaths included, the proportion of civilian deaths rises to more than 86 percent.
https://www.972mag.com/israeli-intelligence-database-83-percent-civilians-militants/
What percent of Israelis killed on 10-7 were Civilians? How about at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945? How about the thousands of unborn who continue to be murdered every day?
eurotrash,
The human animals known as hamas can end the war today by releasing the Jewish hostages they are starving and torturing.
Otherwise, hamas will be hunted down and killed. That doesn't bother me in the slightest.
Just remember eurotrash, when hamas is finished with the Jews, you're next.
Why do you hate so passionately?
What are hate and love without passion?
Reason?
Nuke Gaza!
Kill Them All -- let Allah sort it out...
Geez, Ed what is with the "nuke Gaza" nonsense. You need a MRI of the head.
Seriously, how many times do we have to point out that Gaza is so small that if you DID nuke them, you'd be nuking Israel and Egypt, too?
Hate is part of being a religious nutjob, apparently.
Maybe they should have published it as a “dossier” to make the bullshit more believable? Israel has gone out of the way, putting its own forces in jeopardy, to avoid civilian casualties. The Hamas terrorists hiding under schools, hospitals, apartments, and even UN facilities? Not so much. Human shields are expendable. Hopefully the present military assault on Gaza will eliminate whatever remains of the terrorists you seem eager to defend. Has Hamas committed any wrongs in this war?
A warning for my American friends. Once you get past a certain point of corruption, it can be difficult to get back, because even anti-corruption measures become sources of corruption.
On August 20, 2025, the Indian Government introduced three constitutional amendment bills of massive implications in the Parliament. Together, the bills aim to replace the parliamentary tradition that the executive ministers are accountable solely to the House and establish a mandatory legal sanction providing that any minister – including the Prime Minister at the Union level and Chief Ministers at the State Governments – can be removed from their ministerial office if arrested or detained for thirty consecutive days on charges carrying a potential sentence of five years or more, regardless of whether they retain the House’s confidence. At first glance, the bills may seem laudatory, founded on the expectation of ethical standards for high constitutional office. Yet, one can clearly anticipate the gross impending misuse of this law towards establishing a hegemonic BJP rule in India, with the opposition governments regularly destabilized and targeted. These bills represent another instance of the Modi government’s use of perfectly legal and constitutional actions to advance authoritarian governance.
https://verfassungsblog.de/disqualification-bill-bjp-india/
A warning for my Kraut/Frog friend, we don't give a (redacted) what any snail eating Eurotrash says about anything, Jeez, sometimes I wish things had gone different in the Ardennes December 1944
One refers to the Dutch derisively as Clogs, Frankie
Don’t worry. In the US, the majority overwhelmingly rejected the Biden corruption and elected President Trump.
Meanwhile, in the EU the parliament has decided (as it has in the past) that it will not tolerate being bypassed under emergency powers even when it agrees with the underlying legislation.
The European Parliament decided to go ahead and take the Council of the EU to court after being left out of discussions about the major SAFE loan defence scheme, its press service announced on Wednesday. (...) SAFE, a €150 billion defence loan programme, was proposed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in March to stimulate spending as soon as possible. In May, EU ministers gave their final approval, without consulting the European Parliament. (...) While the Parliament stresses that the “instrument has the full support of Parliament [...] It is about the legal basis that was chosen, which undermines democratic legitimacy.” To skip parliamentary approval, von der Leyen wielded a part of the EU treaties (Article 122 TFEU), normally reserved for emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which speeds up the legislative process by reducing Parliament’s negotiation time significantly.
The European Parliament decided to go ahead and take the Council of the EU to court after being left out of discussions about the major SAFE loan defence scheme, its press service announced on Wednesday. (...) SAFE, a €150 billion defence loan programme, was proposed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in March to stimulate spending as soon as possible. In May, EU ministers gave their final approval, without consulting the European Parliament. (...) While the Parliament stresses that the “instrument has the full support of Parliament [...] It is about the legal basis that was chosen, which undermines democratic legitimacy.”
To skip parliamentary approval, von der Leyen wielded a part of the EU treaties (Article 122 TFEU), normally reserved for emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which speeds up the legislative process by reducing Parliament’s negotiation time significantly.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence/news/european-parliament-sues-council-over-e150-billion-defence-loan-scheme/
Lets consider a hypothetical, lets say a fed governor committed mortgage fraud, like taking out 2 mortgages within a 20 day period and claiming both homes as your principal residence, which is a federal crime.
And lets say the President wants her seat for an new appointee.
Can the the Administration tell her, if you resign, or do not contest your firing then you will not be prosecuted, but if we have to fire you and you contest it then we will Indict you and prosecute in order to vindicate our firing decision.
Obviously the answer is yes.
But what crime will people claim Trump is guilty of?
Like I've been charged with many times, "being awesome"
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/rex_non_potest_peccare
David Allen Green, one of my favourite legal bloggers, just used some literary references (Nick Hornby, Lord of the Flies) to make a point about complacency.
So one can be tempted to think what is happening in the United States is eventually going to be alright. That the constitution will resolve the issues, and the mid-terms are on their way. And in terms of narrative, soon those “on the wrong side of history” will realise they are actually being the baddies and see the error of their ways. Thesis and and antithesis will become a new synthesis. There will again be an equilibrium. Everything will be fine again. * The problem is that some conflicts never resolve, at least not without an absolute victory for one side and an absolute defeat for the other(s). The current culture wars and cruel partisanship may not settle down to an agreed narrative, where one side admits they got it wrong. The nastiness may continue, without there ever being a naval officer on the beach. That the police and the stadium authorities really had been riding their luck all this time. * Trumpism is not going to go away, at least not easily. An entire generation of people, many far younger than Trump, now know what it is like to exercise power without political, legal, or normative limits. They see how the courts and the legislature can be made to cower. They see that a codified constitution is impotent at setting limits, and in providing for checks and balances, without a sense of constitutionalism. And in this situation, the political gatekeepers are not more useful than the old turnstile operators, adding more people to the crush. * Trump and Trumpism provide the most fundamental of challenges to constitutionalism. And having tasted real, raw power, the Trumpists are not going to go away of their own accord: they like it here. Unless and until Trump and Trumpism are defeated, there is no reason to believe constitutionalism will survive in the United States - or elsewhere with similar politics.
So one can be tempted to think what is happening in the United States is eventually going to be alright.
That the constitution will resolve the issues, and the mid-terms are on their way.
And in terms of narrative, soon those “on the wrong side of history” will realise they are actually being the baddies and see the error of their ways.
Thesis and and antithesis will become a new synthesis.
There will again be an equilibrium.
Everything will be fine again.
*
The problem is that some conflicts never resolve, at least not without an absolute victory for one side and an absolute defeat for the other(s).
The current culture wars and cruel partisanship may not settle down to an agreed narrative, where one side admits they got it wrong.
The nastiness may continue, without there ever being a naval officer on the beach.
That the police and the stadium authorities really had been riding their luck all this time.
Trumpism is not going to go away, at least not easily.
An entire generation of people, many far younger than Trump, now know what it is like to exercise power without political, legal, or normative limits.
They see how the courts and the legislature can be made to cower.
They see that a codified constitution is impotent at setting limits, and in providing for checks and balances, without a sense of constitutionalism.
And in this situation, the political gatekeepers are not more useful than the old turnstile operators, adding more people to the crush.
Trump and Trumpism provide the most fundamental of challenges to constitutionalism.
And having tasted real, raw power, the Trumpists are not going to go away of their own accord: they like it here.
Unless and until Trump and Trumpism are defeated, there is no reason to believe constitutionalism will survive in the United States - or elsewhere with similar politics.
https://emptycity.substack.com/p/everything-is-going-to-be-alright
https://apnews.com/article/florida-alligator-alcatraz-trump-injunction-9dc2aa22f87a2a5ac8436918a8794d37
I don't think that merely impeaching 100 Federal Judges would be enough.
Fails to recognize that Trumpism is a reaction to the other side's excesses, which the other side does not want to acknowledge, fancying itself as being on the right side of history.
THE GOP HAS AGENCY.
He shouts and stamps his feet!
Reactionaries react. This isn't hard.
This is overly structural. Yes, people now know if they get enough of a populist head of steam they can roll right over all the laws, regs, policies, expectations, internal controls, and the Constitution.
But that's always been the case with populist spasms. They also tend to be tied to a person.
Society at large isn't a fan of chaos and empty radicalism. There's social and political pressure rising. Trump's people trying to favor themselves structurally will only get them so far with a populist counter-movement.
Nothing's certain; maybe things will continue and we'll be right fucked. But the momentum is still towards a return to something with civic institutions. I'm not sure that means a decisive defeat or anything dramatic. Time marches on.
And it's still a reaction to other people rolling over democracy themselves.
So they rolled over it waving around a gutted palimpsest of a Constitution, that judges have just construed to mean whatever couldn't be won at the ballot box or legitimately adopted by amendment.
They still rolled over it. Populism is the inevitable reaction to governments insisting on doing the unpopular, to the electoral system being rigged so that voting stops working. The public wanting immigration laws enforced for decades, and both major parties refusing to. The public wanting an end to racial preferences, and getting entrenched DEI instead. One unpopular policy after another shoved down people's throats.
You turn up the heat on the pressure cooker, you don't like the whistling from the relief valve, so you weld it down. And the more it bulges, you more you weld it.
And then you complain when it explodes.
It is a reaction, but it is an unprincipled reaction.
Obviously, one party "rolling over" democracy should be opposed by anyone who values democracy, but it should be opposed by strengthening democracy, not by going full Trumptard.
Oh, I agree. Populism is a really stupid reaction. What can you expect, when the IQ of a group is inversely proportional to the number in it? NO genuinely grass roots large scale movement can be smart.
And it's even worse when, every time you try to put together a principled opposition movement, like the Tea party, it gets coopted.
Eventually you get populism because enough people decide that nothing well thought out and measured is going to work, that the best thing is to just blow things up, and then rebuild from the rubble.
I'm not the first person to observe that Trump wasn't seized upon to deliver a considered, measured program. He was seized upon to be a wrecking ball.
What witty comments did he make describing the repugnant Biden administration lawfare and corrupt fabrication and weaponization of intelligence that began under Obama?
Lots of people argue that murder is the most reliably reported and counted crime, because after all there's no question whether there's a dead body. However, DC shows that it can still be underreported, and that a corrupt government can delay dealing with that until a better government takes over: in this case, for five years.
https://freebeacon.com/crime/danger-to-public-safety-dc-police-misclassified-deaths-as-accidental-to-drive-down-murder-numbers-homicide-cop-alleges-in-lawsuit/
Is that the same DC police that's been bragging about how much Trump has reduced crime in the last week?
Beat police officers are not the same as their bosses in City government.
Luckily, this 'Listen to the GOP not the facts crime is worse than the facts says' is not playing well, except among the already deeply committed.
Where "facts" = "as reported by Democrats who have already been caught cooking the books".
Don't be such a hack. Be better. Do better.
Why do you ask the impossible?
I think I heard Bondi saying DC crime was down 1500%
This brings up an interesting general question. People like to talk about the facts, the numbers, etc.
But how much weight should we give data reported by institutions or generated by studies where there's not a lot of transparency and we don't have a lot of insight into how it's generated?
Just like with Labor and the Fed, if you can just get the right people in charge of compiling the data, you can get all sorts of magical results, don't you think?!
Borrowing from the late/great Cassius Clay/Moe-hammad Ali "No Russian ever called me (redacted)"
"ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC/Gray News) – A white Minnesota mother accused of using racial slurs against a 5-year-old Black boy at a playground has raised over $600,000 for herself on an online fundraiser.
The woman, who identified herself as Shiloh Hendrix, has now increased her fundraising goal to $1 million on GiveSendGo, a Christian-based crowdfunding site.
Hendrix was caught on camera hurling racial slurs at a 5-year-old boy in a now-viral video at a park in Rochester.
She claims the 5-year-old stole items from her son’s diaper bag. Regarding the slurs, she wrote on her fundraiser, “I called the kid out for what he was.”"
https://www.kgns.tv/2025/05/05/more-than-600k-fundraised-woman-seen-yelling-racial-slurs-5-year-old-playground/
What interests me most here is the Christian Fund Me site. The woman amassed more than $600,000 in the first two days (currently at $800,000). The site had to turn off the comments section because the amount of foul language and racial slurs were so great that it had overwhelmed the language filters of the site.
I mean, it's no secret that the nation's white Christians (aka MAGA, aka you hayseeds here as well) are racist to the core, but I do enjoy a tidy example of it like this story
Got a link to the video?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cg-FT5B5IZ8
Thanks.
Same thing with St George Floyd, who OVERDOSED...
The Battle of Shiloh was a critical turning point in the Great Culture War of the 20'oughts.
It's when Normies, riding the Bug Light Massacre, rose up against the Left and took their another scalp... shifting the Overton Window back to the reality of and normalcy of the human condition and race realism.
"Since the video went viral, Hendrix said she has received threats and is raising money to relocate her family."
Well, she can probably now afford to move to "Return to the Land" in Arkansas.
Hmm. Has anyone started a fund for the illegal alien charged with sexually assaulting a child who was recently caught on the Mall in DC?
Wow. The kid only got $340k.
Put down the book, pick up the phone.
So it goes in the United States, where daily reading for pleasure has plummeted more than 40% among adults over the last two decades, according to a new study from the University of Florida and University College London.
From 2003 to 2023, daily leisure reading declined at a steady rate of about 3% per year, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal iScience…the percentage of Americans who leisure-read on a typical day has dropped from a high of 28% in 2004 to a low of 16% in 2023.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-20/reading-for-pleasure-on-steep-decline-study-finds
Does it count if I use the kindle app on my phone?
It seemed to but it also may have confused respondents into misreporting such activity:
“reading on tablets, computers and smartphones was not explicitly included in examples, making it unclear whether survey participants included it as leisure reading or technology use.”
As always with polling the framing of the question matters.
As always it matters somewhat, and as long as the methodology is transparent results can be useful.
21 August 2025 Russia has launched 574 drones and 40 missiles on Ukraine in one of the heaviest bombardments in weeks, Ukrainian officials say.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62wj8yje2eo.amp
July 29, 2023. Rally in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we all together win the presidency, we will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled. The war is going to be settled. I’ll get them both – I know Zelensky, I know Putin, it’ll be done within 24 hours, you watch. They all say, ‘That’s such a boast.’ It will be done very quickly.”
Not news. DJT has already admitted publicly that he was wrong about his baseless optimism. Stop gloating that more Ukrainians have been killed.
Why do you take Ukrainian lives so cheaply that you supported a man who had such an unserious take on the subject?
"Shortly after Biden wrapped up his press conference, his press secretary Jen Psaki issued a statement trying to explain what he meant:
"If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that's a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our allies." https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074466148/biden-russia-ukraine-minor-incursion
How we got to where we are. Who was "un-serious"?
"But Biden!"
I NEVER voted for Mr Trump. How did you become a mind reader? How did you become a side stepper? Why do you gloat over killed Ukrainians?
Promises made. Promises kept.
What are you whining about now?
I don't love the Cracker Barrell redesign, but how the hell is it some anti-woke cause?
Is MAGA running out of stupid culture war shit to get mad about?
Another Big Brand, another Big Bootlicking by the Corporate Left and their surfs.
Compared to most of the recent culture war battles, this fight is relatively tame.
Podcast host Joe Rogan has continued to hammer Donald Trump and his administration over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. On Tuesday, the influential commentator slammed Trump over his repeated claims that the scandal is a “hoax” that’s been “perpetrated by the Democrats.”
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/shows/top-stories/blog/rcna226387
So, California's going to go for a hard gerrymander. And New York is trying to follow. But...what then?
By my math, the GOP could pick up at least 14-15 seats in the small and medium GOP-controlled states if they did a hard gerrymander to respond. The Democrats can't respond well there...those small-medium states they control are already gerrymandered to the extent they can. They might get one more seat out of MD.
If it's a full out gerrymander "war"...the democrats are going to lose.
In order to achieve those gerrymanders in CA and NY, they'd have to dump their anti-gerrymandering provisions. They happen to be popular in both states.
Right-wing influencers including Chris Rufo, who unfortunately has success in this area, is trying to turn the logo/redesign of a mid-tier chain restaurant typically right off freeway exits into a culture war flashpoint because of “woke.”
Which I actually appreciate. Because it is great evidence that much of the modern American right is an irrational emotionally driven movement oriented around being upset that things don’t look exactly as they remembered them looking as a kid.
Like it’s a kitsch chain restaurant dude. WTF cares. You can still go to Bob Evans for farm food Applebees if you need to see shit all over the walls. Or gasp! There are probably local restaurants with better food that had a “farm” aesthetic!
Woke rebrands are wasteful and counterproductive. Nobody likes the Land'O'Lakes logo where the American Indian has been totally erased from her historic territory. PepsiCo renamed Aunt Jemima but the new name sucks, so they still have to advertise it as "Same great taste as Aunt Jemima." "Ben's Original" rice is too ashamed to use its original name.
And now a dumb CEO has decided that the right way to put her chop on the company is through destroying lots of shareholder value by throwing out core elements of the company's brand. The board of directors should be looking for both a new CEO and some good lawyers.
Why is the rebrand woke?
Because it wasn't done by Jeffrey Epstein.
“Nobody likes the Land'O'Lakes logo where the American Indian has been totally erased from her historic territory.”
Idk about you, but when I buy butter I’m just checking to see if it’s salted or unsalted.
LTG, There is more to deciding on the quality of butter than whether it is salted or unsalted. Try different brands and see for yourself.
Institutions that are key to hillbilly ideology like WWF and NASCAR have rebranded constantly over the years, but it's the rebranding of neegro themed products that bring the patriot tears out
I never knew that the World Wide Fund to Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund, another example of a dumb rebrand) was "key to hillbilly ideology". Live and learn!
(Some of us are alert enough to have noticed that the wrestling people switched their name and initials over 30 years ago in response to legal action by the aforementioned key to hillbilly ideology. Others are evidently not so alert.)
I intentionally used WWF to prove my point
Your point that ... the wrestling people rebranded because of legal action by loonie lefties, therefore something hayseeds something?
Get a real point.
""It takes away from heritage. When you're 81 years old, you kind of remember the way the place started," Pensacola resident Joseph Crawford, a Vietnam veteran, told Fox News Digital. "And this has taken away from it.""
""Yeah, I think Cracker Barrel is fixing to Bud Light themselves," Brandon Gisclair told Fox News Digital."
Cracker Barrel has a special place in the heart of Bubba because it got caught denying service to neegroes back in the 80's. If that heritage is lost, what could happen next?!
Democrats still embrace Jim Crow.
https://x.com/goparlington/status/1958663148770120028
This is less letting a mask slip and more making it clear that old white lefties continue to be very upset about "uppity" Black people leaving the white people's plantations.
Where exactly is this conclusion of yours displayed in that post?
https://x.com/Jaaavis/status/1958691986283581852
Winsome Earle-Sears is for you (well, not hobie specifically). Abigail Spanberger is for they/them and for shrugging at negative coverage.
Now that John Bolton has been Roger Stone'd and Peter Navarro'd, how long do you think he'll become the next Left's cause célèbre?
Please log in to post comments
Mute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?
Steven Greenhut | 8.22.2025 7:30 AM
J.D. Tuccille | 8.22.2025 7:00 AM
Jason Russell | From the August/September 2025 issue
Charles Oliver | 8.22.2025 4:00 AM
Tosin Akintola | 8.21.2025 5:07 PM
